Categories
defamation

The Booz Allen Defamation Trial in Progress

The Booz Allen Hamilton Case(Baby photo credits: utpal)

An anonymous member called “Boozallen” published a post on Omania2.net defaming the CEO and CTO of Oman Mobile. The CEO complained to the Public Prosecution which took action under Section 61 of the Telecom Law to prosecute the administration of the website.

There are many interesting points in this case, but it is necessary to talk about the facts. On the 20th of August 2008, the offending post was written in English on Omania2.net, but as An Arabic forum, the moderator named Ali Al Zuwaidy temporarily deleted this post on the grounds that it was written in a foreign language, however, after receiving some messages from other members, he unlocked it and made the following post:

 
أخي الكريم..
قمت في المرة الأولى بغلق الموضوع بسبب الكتابة باللغة الانجليزية، لكن بعد مراجعة الأمر مع احد الأخوة قررت فتح الموضوع وابقائه مع دعوة أي شخص لترجمة الموضوع ليتسنى للجميع الاطلاع عليه…
 

Translation: Generous Brother, I initially locked the topic because the writing was in the English langauge, but after reviewing the issue with one of hte brothers I decided to open it and keep it while inviting any other person to translate the topic so that everyone can view it.

On the 21st of August, the administration of the website decided to remove the thread from the public because of their fear that it offended a website policy on not posting anything that might violate the ruling system of the country. 

The complaint by Oman Mobile was made after the thread was removed from the forum.

This case is interesting because it probably is the first one to be about a post written in the English language. All previous major cases were written in Arabic, the case is also intereseting because the identity of the original post author was not discovered, and because the action is made against a specific moderator and not the owner or main administrator of the website. The court made the decision to take an action again Ali Al Zuwaidi specifically because he responded to the thread and actively unlocked it after it he locked it before.

The case is currently in progress and the next hearing will be held on the 17th of March. 

I think that this is a classical case for which Section 61(4) was specifically introduced. Webmasters should be responsible for content published on their website, it is illogical to think that people could simply argue that the post was written by someone else one a  website when they actively maintain as commercial platform for people to post messages for which they have direct control over.  However, the law is unfair because it does not provide a defence for webmasters who take reasonable diligent action to remove defamatory content from their website, which you can argue was the case here as the post was allegedly removed within 24 hours – even though the moderator previously did make an active choice to allow that post on the forum.

If Ali Al Zuwaidi is found guilty he could be prisoned for a period up to a year and fined up to a 1000 Omani Rials. 

It is worth noting that the Public Prosecution issued a press release today reminding people that sending messages that offen the public order could lead to criminal sanctions. 

Will be looking forward to see how this case progresses.